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The Web3 industry continues to grow as 2024 gets started, continuing the momentum that 2023 started to build. However, it's hard to gauge just how much the industry is growing because it depends on what metrics you view, who you ask, or what chains/platforms you interact with. While the financial aspects of Web3 are a key measure for the non-tech industry (specifically the price of Bitcoin), this arguably tells very little of the story. There are a great many Web3 use cases that have little or nothing to do with token prices, and the value they provide can take many different forms. The growth of users is an interesting measure and worth looking at. However, it may be best to judge the growth of Web3 on how much is being built right now, measured by the number of people actively working on building up the next generation of Web3 innovation.
A few stats paint an interesting picture. The height of Web3 developers active in the space was in mid-2022. In June 2022, there were a record 27,200 developers working on various projects. While this dipped due to the bear market, since that point there have been a steady number of developers active, typically between 20-25K each month. While the number hasn't yet recovered completely, some experts in the field see a parallel to the development cycle of 2019, when crypto prices were dominating the opinions of mainstream, while insiders could see dramatic growth in the industry thanks to the large amount of development happening. In the current market, are these developers spread across the industry chains? This seems to be the case, with between 2-9% of the Web3 developer population working on each of 20 different networks, from Polkadot (8.9%) to Apron Network (2.7%).
This is all very good news for the Web3 industry, showing if not a dramatic growth in development appetite, then at least a steady effort to build up the ecosystem. However, this is where context paints a less promising picture. While there are around 25K trained and active developers for Web3, the global population of developers as a whole is 28.7 million. This is a factor of 1,000x more developers working on platforms of all types. This means that after over five years of strong development, Web3 still only represents 0.1% of the global population. This is a drop in the bucket of overall development, when many expected Web3 to be achieving the much sought-after "mass adoption" phase of its growth.
What happened? While some Web3 languages are multi-purpose, such as Javascript, Python, C++, and even HTML, there are critical needs for languages like Go, Rust, and the variations of languages needed to write smart contracts and develop the foundational elements of a blockchain.
While we might think there needs to be more encouragement for developers, this has already been done. Accelerator programs, grants, mentorship programs, and train-to-hire job programs have been funded (and successful) for years. So what else can be done? Looking at the problem logically, there seems to be plenty of great ideas, concepts, and dreams for Web3. There seems to be a shortage of the people who can turn those ideas into reality. But what if we could remove the requirement for development, giving these dreamers the power to develop without learning code? This concept isn't new, but it is gaining momentum as technology improves, and no industry needs it as much as Web3. Let's dive into how this could work, and look specifically at infrastructure projects like those at Andromeda to see what it will take to put all the pieces together.
Simply put, a suite of "no-code" tools will allow someone to build software that can complete a desired task without having to understand or write code. No-code tools could also conceivably be paired with layers of programming to create more complex tasks, but this quickly creates the original problem of too few developers.
A true no-code platform, at least at a high level, isn't as impossible as it may seem, thanks to the Pareto principle: "Roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes." This is a very general statement, and the 80/20 mix is more for demonstration purposes. However, this principle holds true in many areas, and Web3 is no different. If you look at Web3 platforms across the industry, there is a shocking commonality in tasks that a platform needs to perform. Yes, each platform might have a slightly different twist on it, different branding, and different values of things like their tokenomics. But if we look at Web3 platform tasks, we can break them down into common "bite-sized" chunks:
When tasks are broken down into "micro-tasks", Web3 becomes a much more manageable set of building blocks. When developers can use a GUI to insert key branding, text, and customize various micro-tasks, they can make a platform that has unique value for the community. Even if there is still 5% of the platform that must be programmed to produce an out-of-the-ordinary feature, this is a lot easier to manage in terms of finding one of the 25K qualified developers available.
Why don't all chains offer this no-code service? Frankly put, in order to make a programming language "no-code", it takes a great amount of hard work, problem solving, and ingenuity. While this is growing in Web3, it is still somewhat rare. One notable example of a platform that is open about how this process works is Andromeda. They have evolved their no-code tool set over time, leading to a platform that is being used by a growing number of development teams.
The micro-task building blocks are called ADOs, or Andromeda Digital Objects. These items are small chunks of code that complete a micro-task, and are meant to be combined into a series or collection in order to create valuable options for users. Using a technology called Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), the platform simplifies connecting functionality across chains. Finally, the Andromeda OS (aOS), has a foundation that ties everything together to enable a no-code development suite with an intuitive interface for non-programming developers.
With the relatively minuscule number of Web3 developers in the world, it's clear that no-code solutions must continue to improve the Web3 building space, giving teams without advanced programming experience the opportunity to realize their ideas, dreams, and innovations for this growing ecosystem.
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